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A scientific fact/tidbit you recently learned that you thought was interesting

alfaniner said:
I thought the universe was only about 14 billion years old? Well, according to The Big Bang Theory, anyway....
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You're right. About 13.8 to be precise (although I don't know how they know that to such precision). The error bar on that is about 0.037 by.

When they say that things are more than that distance away in light years, I think it generally means that given the expansion of the universe, it would be that far away now.

Here's the details according to Wikipedia:
with the projected comoving distance of approximately 18.2 billion light-years from Earth.
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The "comoving distance" means the distance where it would be now.
Given its observed redshift of 2.219, the light travel time of TON 618 is estimated to be approximately 10.8 billion years.
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So actually, we're seeing it as it was approximately 10.8 billion years ago.
 
Andy_Ross said:
Up the east coast to Inverness then through the canal. Shortcut to the Hebrides.
We would go up one year then overwintered the boat on the west coast to continue sailing the next year before retracing our course.
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That sounds absolutely heavenly.
 
Rolfe said:
So the main channel where the River Roy runs at present was open, allowing Loch Roy to become contiguous with the 260-metre Loch Spean, but the ice was still blocking the Allt Iondrainn, which runs south out of Caol Lairig, at about the level of the black line (which joins the ends of the 300-metre shores as marked). So there was a 300-metre loch in there which was draining down the Allt Bruachan (arrow) into the now 260-metre Loch Roy, and that would have existed until the ice cleared from the Allt Iondrainn channel, allowing the water level to drop down to the common 260 metres, so that Beinn a' Mhonicag was simply an island in a 260-metre loch again, as it had been an island in the 325 and 350-metre lochs. It's an interesting wrinkle, although I've not seen it discussed.
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No, this last bit is obviously wrong. Beinn a' Mhonicag can't be an island in a 260-metre loch when there is a 300-metre col at the north end. When the water first fell from the 325-metre level (when the hill was an island), "Loch Lairig" formed in its first incarnation at 300 metres, the outflow to the south still blocked by ice, so that the spillway from the little loch went down the Allt Bruachan as shown. However, when the ice blocking the channel south of the hill into Glen Roy itself and the water level fell to 260 metres, Loch Lairig became a short side-loch of "Loch Roy" and Beinn a' Mhonicag was a peninsula joined to dry land by the now-dry 300-metre col. Another geàrr loch, perhaps!

It just shows how difficult it can be to keep every aspect of this four-dimensional puzzle straight at once.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
War - what is it good for?

Increased number of offspring.
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There is an expansion of territary, so more food available. So there is a greater chance of children living. This does imply that some children starved to death. Plus the mothers would have more food for themselves. I wonder if any animal died due to the war? They also never mentioned the size of the tribe. Did that increase? It is an obvious bit of data to collect yet it is not mentioned.
 
Rolfe said:
That sounds absolutely heavenly.
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Love sailing the Minch.

I blame it all on reading this book as a child
Scottish islands, sailing and bird watching all in one book

It has maps, lovely illustrations and everything

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I loved these books too, but most of what I remember is the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads (and one hair-raising one where they crossed the North Sea in a gale by accident). I had not acually remembered that Great Northern? was set in Scotland. That's how young I was when I read it.
 
You are thinking of "We Didn't Mean To GoTo Sea" followed by "Secret Water" set just a few days later in and around the creeks and salt flats around Walton on the Naze.

In "Peter Duck" and "Missie Lee" they are off across the Atlantic in a proper sea going Schooner out of Lowestoft.

"Great Northern?" is the last book he wrote and is my favourite of them all.

Still a good read.
 
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Peter Duck was the first one I read I think, and Swallowdale. Wet summer, in a rented flat and nothing to read, and my Dad borrowed these for me from the local minister. These and Black Beauty. I was about seven. I'd only read things like Noddy and Rupert up till then. I started with Peter Duck because I thought it was a story about a duck! Then I got hooked. For a while I thought their lake must be Lake Titicaca because it was on the Amazon.
 
bigred said:
I found this interesting. I need to get out more:
www.nbcnews.com

Moss survived in space for nine months, study finds

The moss was attached to the International Space Station, fully exposed to the harsh environment of the cosmos. Not only did the spores endure, but they could still reproduce after returning to Earth.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com
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Sounds like an emergeny.

He'd need this:
0118 999 881 999 119 725 3
 
And NASA shares images of 3I/ATLAS. Also kind of cool that the camera and the spacecraft were designed to be pointed at Mars 300 km below us, not out at an interstellar comet 30 million km away
(Via Katie Mack @astrokatie.com)
 
theprestige said:
Telomeres lengthen in microgravity, then contract to shorter than their usual length when returned to a 1g environment.
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Well that doesn't sound good for manned space exploration.

Maybe it starts miniscule (fingers crossed)... but it's cumulative. 😡
 
Black mould thriving at radiation in Tchernobyl:

The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation

It appears that melanin can protect organisms from radiation, and this black mould is even attracted to radiation, and is now growing inside the reactor rooms, a behaviour termed 'radiotropism'.

Along with the apparently radiotropic fungi, Zhdanova's surveys found 36 other species of ordinary, but distantly related, fungi growing around Chernobyl. Over the next two decades, her pioneering work on the radiotropic fungi she identified would reach far outside of Ukraine. It would add to knowledge of a potentially new foundation of life on Earth – one that thrives on radiation rather than sunlight. And it would lead scientists at Nasa to consider surrounding their astronauts in walls of fungi for a durable form of life support.
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There is also speculation about fungi being able to gain energy from radiation:
In 2007, Ekaterina Dadachova, a nuclear scientist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, added to Zhdanova's work on Chernobyl's fungi, revealing that their growth wasn't just directional (radiotropic) but actually increased in the presence of radiation. Melanised fungi, just like those inside Chernobyl's reactor, grew 10% faster in the presence of radioactive Caesium compared to the same fungi cultured without radiation, she found. Dadachova and her team also found that the melanised fungi that were irradiated appeared to be using the energy to help drive its metabolism. In other words, they were using it to grow.
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All of this stuff is not very recent, and I apologise if it has already been brought here, but I find it interesting enough to repeat!
 
Jim_MDP said:
Well that doesn't sound good for manned space exploration.

Maybe it starts miniscule (fingers crossed)... but it's cumulative. 😡
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I doubt if manned space exploration is ever going to be possible beyond maybe a short-term manned expedition to Mars, and even that's on the edge.
 
steenkh said:
Black mould thriving at radiation in Tchernobyl:

The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation

It appears that melanin can protect organisms from radiation, and this black mould is even attracted to radiation, and is now growing inside the reactor rooms, a behaviour termed 'radiotropism'.


There is also speculation about fungi being able to gain energy from radiation:

All of this stuff is not very recent, and I apologise if it has already been brought here, but I find it interesting enough to repeat!
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Badly written or typo? "...that thrives on radiation rather than sunlight..."
 
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